Average number of playable hands in tournaments

KAM_E_RA

Hi all

I was just wondering if anyone could help me with the percentage of playable hands in holdem tournaments. I was playing in the bounty hunter this evening and was playing reasonably tightly, as this is only my second tournament.

I went though a long period where I was basically being dealt rubbish irrespective of position and found I was not able to even call, and when seeing the flop turn and river was proved to have rubbish.

So I went through the hand history to have a look I found that of the 72 hands I was dealt I was only really able to play 20 (including some marginals ) so just over 1/3 is that about right if you are playing conservatively?

If that is the case, what is the best way of maximising my return on that 1/3. One thought I had was should I slow play more from a late position? (I was not really doing that and was betting to show strenght to make sure I won)

RESTORMEL

Someone who is playing 1/3 of hands dealt would usually be classed as loose. I'm more of a cash than tourney player so maybe not best qualified to answer this.  But I would reckon a tight player would be playing less than 10% of hands, particularly in early stages when blinds are relatively small. 

Obviously some of the faster tourney structures on sky mean you have to take your chances with a wider range of hands otherwise you will be blinded out.  So in the later stages you may need to be playing a lot more hands so 30%+ may be necessary to just keep ahead of the blinds if your stack is short.

Again, not a tourney expert, but I think most successful tourney players will tell you that your actual cards are the least important element in winning.  More important are your ability to read situations/opponents, make aggressive plays at the right time and win pots without going to showdown.  I'm sure some of the forum tourney players will elaborate or correct me if I'm wrong.

All the best

restormel

dunn80

Restormel said a tight player would play 10% of hands at the start of a tournament. This is probably true of a 10 seater table, but in a 6 seater tournament 30% of hands would be fine I think. If you play 10% of hands in a 6 seater tournie(especially the open etc) you would be looked upon as extremely tight, too tight.
Again as he says its not always about the cards, if you pick up some hands fine if not you have to play in position go with your reads and perhaps make some moves. You have to watch table when you are not in hand to see what kind of hands are being played and try and look at any showdowns using the history button, and this will help define your range.
To answer your question of whether to slow play hands there are alot of factors to take into consideration. The main way of finding out is by playing and trying different ways of playing hands. You will learn alot by playing more hands. I quite often slow play against agrresive players who think top pair is the nuts, but against tight players I will play standard as either they will have a hand or not. This dosent always work though.Also you have to look at board when you have slow played, if you limp aces, flop comes 667 and there are 3 people taking interest in pot you quite often have to fold them.
Anyway no one can define the exact % of hands to play as some tourneys you will play more, I feel you should just find a style which suits you and by playing more you can find this out.

KAM_E_RA

Thanks for the responses very helpful, guess I have some learning to do, and more hands to play before I become comfortable with my style of play for on-line. Perhaps I am being too analytical and should just go with the flow..